Wide-winged owl caller
hooting through the hollow night,
your screech,
bright and empty
like a blond wig left on its Styrofoam head
cooling as the wearer
languishes.

White-eyed blank stare,
the pupils would dilate in the darkness,
but there are no pupils,
just the
mannequin looking back at me
as your chortle gallops across
the soft palate.

Your noises just like when we sat on the veranda
flower boxes pocking the sidewalk.
You pooh-poohed
the wine
and talked of distant friends
as if they all stood with their knives sharpened.
I make a joke about their eyebrows,
to elicit your
illicit noise,
heady like a humping hyena
deep-bodied,
diaphragmed
and repeated
as if a chuckle could be redemption,
as if a margarita could save us all.